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RR RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHVB #0145/01 0391512
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 081512Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY ZAGREB
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7271
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ZAGREB 000145 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV HR
SUBJECT: TRADITIONAL SLAVONIAN REGION GEARS UP FOR NOVEMBER 
ELECTIONS 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY AND COMMENT:  With momentum building toward 
national elections expected in November, center-left parties in 
Slavonia, the traditional rural heartland of continental Croatia, 
seem less active and enthusiastic than those on the right.  This 
could be the result of savvy public relations efforts by the 
right-wing Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), which recently hired an 
Israeli PR consultant. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Although Slavonia, long a bastion of rural conservatives, 
certainly does not represent Croatia as a whole, the HSP hopes to 
gain enough votes to become an indispensable element in any future 
coalition led by the center-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). 
In addition to activism and enthusiasm, the HSP has no past record 
of "poor government" simply because it has never been in a position 
to govern at the state level.  Disenchanted voters may turn to them 
for this reason, or simply choose to stay at home.  All major 
parties are still strategizing about the best ways to approach the 
upcoming election season. This is the first of a series of 
election-related reports. END SUMMARY AND COMMENT 
 
¶3. (U)Embassy Zagreb political officer and senior FSN recently 
traveled to Slavonski Brod and Osijek, the major cities of Slavonia, 
often viewed as the traditional heartland of rural Eastern Croatia. 
Each city is the center of one of Croatia's ten electoral districts; 
fourteen members of parliament will be elected from each of the ten 
districts, in addition to representatives of ethnic minorities and 
Croatian "Diaspora," who are elected in two separate districts. 
 
SLAVONSKI BROD: AS MARCH DOES WILL NOVEMBER VOTE 
 
¶4. (U) Slavonski Brod, center of electoral District Five and 
sixth-biggest town in Croatia, has just experienced the dissolution 
of its local governing coalition composed of the right-wing Croatian 
Party of Rights (HSP), center-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) 
and the Croatian Social-Liberal Party (HSLS).  An internal power 
struggle between HSP and HDZ officials has forced early local 
elections in March. Interlocutors in the city characterized the 
upcoming vote in Slavonski Brod as the best way to feel the pulse of 
the Slavonian electorate prior to the parliamentary elections 
expected in November. 
 
¶5. (U) The HDZ built its campaign optimism on its own results in a 
number of local elections held in the previous weeks in other parts 
of the country.  The HDZ had done well in numerous local communities 
throughout the region, except at the elections for city boroughs in 
Osijek (see reference below).  The HSP boasted to Embassy officials 
as well, claiming a constant rise, both regionally and nationwide. 
This formerly extreme right party is expecting good results, 
especially in the center-eastern parts of District Five, including 
the towns of Slavonski Brod and Vukovar. After contracting a Tel 
Aviv-based public relations firm, local HSP interlocutors stressed 
to Embassy visitors that they are seeking a younger, more educated 
electorate as a new base for their party. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Croatian Bock (HB) is a party of little significance in any 
other part of the country except Slavonski Brod.  It is a 
nationalist party of former HDZ members, closer in its politics to 
the HSP than to its past associates.  HB's influence in Slavonski 
Brod primarily revolves around its leader there, Jozo Meter, a 
former mayor and county prefect.  While Meter hopes that good 
results at local elections in March would lead to his eventual 
election into Parliament later this year, his opponents doubt the HB 
has much to offer without a strong presence in the rest of the 
country.  The HB is aware of that weakness, and has therefore 
initiated the process of gathering a dozen or more miniscule 
right-wing parties that are expected to unite in the spring. 
 
¶7. (SBU) On the left, the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) and its 
allies Croatian People's Party (HNS) and Croatian Peasants Party 
(HSS) won the biggest number of votes on a joint slate in May 2005. 
(It is worth noting a political defector from HSS had at the time 
helped the HSP, HDZ and HSLS to form a majority and rule the city.) 
One would conclude that the failure of that coalition would help the 
original winners at the local elections in March.  However, the 
local SDP chief in Slavonski Brod Zeljko Racki was not so certain. 
"People here vote as sports fans, not as voters," he said, 
pessimistically, explaining it is still relatively easy to recount 
stories from the war and scare people with "threats" from the other 
side of the Sava river (i.e. the neighboring Serb Republic in 
Bosnia). 
 
¶8. (SBU) The local SDP chief stressed that part of the reason for 
SDP's perceived failure in Slavonski Brod lies in the failure of the 
central SDP to articulate clear messages that would relate to the 
people and to their day-to-day problems. Particularly, he said, this 
is the case in a town and region that are lagging behind the rest of 
country in investment and economic growth. Although disheartened, 
Racki was still hopeful that his party could get a plurality of 
 
ZAGREB 00000145  002 OF 002 
 
 
votes and then try to find partners to form a government. 
 
OSIJEK: URBAN AND LIBERAL TURNED POPULIST AND PAROCHIAL 
 
¶9. (SBU) The mood in Osijek - the "capital" of Slavonia and the 
fourth biggest city in the country - still has a taint of the 
emergency circumstances surrounding the war-crimes case against 
Branimir Glavas, the leader of the regional Croatian Democratic 
Congress of Slavonia and Baranja (HDSSB).  Since he broke away from 
the HDZ almost two years ago, Glavas has managed to direct all blame 
for the poor socio-economic situation to his former party leadership 
(HDZ) in Zagreb, despite the fact he was once considered the single 
most powerful man in most of Slavonia. Glavas has also marketed 
himself as a "martyr" persecuted by an "evil government" in his 
righteous cause of defending the regional pride of Slavonia, a 
region that has long since felt neglected by Zagreb, said Drago 
Hedl, award winning Osijek-based reporter for Feral Tribune. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Biljana Borzan, a young medical doctor and SDP chief in 
the city, explained to Embassy reps that Glavas won the first battle 
by getting out of Zagreb's jail and being transferred back to his 
regional power-base (see septels).  Even some people from her own 
party fell for Glavas's propaganda and felt sorry for the way the 
government "did him wrong," she said. She was saddened to see her 
city that had for fifteen years been run by a liberal mayor go to 
the hands of those who have no program other than fueling people's 
anger at Zagreb. Although the SDP is not traditionally strong in 
Osijek, Borzan hopes that its chances will improve with the 
assignment of Zoran Milanovic, a "young lion" from party HQ in 
Zagreb, as campaign coordinator for District Four.  Other opposition 
parties in the city and the district would be happy even to make the 
necessary five percent threshold to win representation in the Sabor. 
As for the HDZ, the party appears to remain relatively strong in the 
west of the district (Virovitica and Podravina Region).  Its biggest 
weakness in Osijek lies in the fact that its county and city leaders 
don't live there, operating instead from Zagreb where they serve as 
senior government officials. 
 
¶11. (SBU) The number of votes for the HSP (Glavas's partner both in 
the city and the county) doubled between two different sets of 
elections in mid-2005 and late 2006.  Partly this is due to the fact 
that HSP president Anto Djapic is also the Mayor of Osijek, where he 
has started a number of projects, in the style of the populist SDP 
Mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandic.  HSP County President Danijel Srb 
expects his party to win the single biggest number of votes in all 
of District Four, despite the HDZ's strength in the western parts. 
"Our strategy is that of steady growth, not coming to power at all 
costs," Srb said, explaining the HSP would definitely run alone in 
the elections and link up with others -- preferably the Croatian 
Peasants Party (HSS) and the HSLS -- only afterward.  Srb said that 
Glavas's policy of regionalism would probably be short-lived in 
Slavonia, where people don't have strong autonomist feelings as they 
do, for instance, in Istria. 
 
BRADTKE